Tarfu, or fubar? You decide. February 8, 2022 Impacts of plastic pollution in the oceans on marine species, biodiversity and ecosystems Tekman, Mine B.; Walther, Bruno A.; Peter, Corina; Gutow, Lars; Bergmann, Melanie A new report commissioned by WWF provides the most comprehensive account to date of the extent to which plastic pollution is affecting the global ocean, the impacts it’s having on marine species and ecosystems, and how these trends are likely to develop in future. The report by researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) reveals a serious and rapidly worsening situation that demands immediate and concerted international action: ● Today almost every species group in the ocean has encountered plastic pollution, with scientists observing negative effects in almost 90% of assessed species. ● Not only has plastic pollution entered the marine food web, it is significantly affecting the productivity of some of the world’s most important marine ecosystems like coral reefs and mangroves. ● Several key global regions – including areas in the Mediterranean, the East China and Yellow Seas and Arctic sea ice – have already exceeded plastic pollution thresholds beyond which significant ecological risks can occur, and several more regions are expected to follow suit in the coming years. ● If all plastic pollution inputs stopped today, marine microplastic levels would still more than double by 2050 – and some scenarios project a 50-fold increase by 2100. The paper is over 230 pages, but the executive summary is only six: https://zenodo.org/record/5898684/f...stic_pollution_Report_220125_1.pdf?download=1
This pertains to the 'novel entities' boundary of the nine boundary model, linked to previously... Drugs have dangerously polluted the world’s rivers, scientists warn Pharmaceutical pollution poses ‘global threat to human and environmental health’, major study finds The Kai Tak river in Hong Kong had 34 different active pharmaceutical ingredients at a single site, the highest number recorded. Photograph: Robert Harding/Rex/Shutterstock Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington Mon 14 Feb 2022 20.00 GMT Last modified on Tue 15 Feb 2022 05.09 GMT Humanity’s drugs have polluted rivers across the entire world and pose “a global threat to environmental and human health”, according to the most comprehensive study to date. Pharmaceuticals and other biologically active compounds used by humans are known to harm wildlife and antibiotics in the environment drive up the risk of resistance to the drugs, one of the greatest threats to humanity. The scientists measured the concentration of 61 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) at more than 1,000 sites along 258 rivers and in 104 countries, covering all continents. Only two places were unpolluted – Iceland and a Venezuelan village where the indigenous people do not use modern medicines. The most frequently detected APIs were an anti-epileptic drug, carbamazepine, which is hard to break down, the diabetes drug metformin, and caffeine. All three were found in at least half of the sites. Antibiotics were found at dangerous levels in one in five sites and many sites also had at least one API at levels considered harmful for wildlife, with effects such as feminising fish. The APIs end up in rivers after being taken by people and livestock and then excreted into the sewer system or directly into the environment, though some may also leak from pharmaceutical factories. Hotspots with very high levels of APIs included Lahore in Pakistan, La Paz in Bolivia, and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Madrid in Spain was in the top 10% of places with highest cumulative concentrations, and Glasgow, UK, and Dallas, US, were in the top 20%. “The World Health Organization and UN and other organisations say antimicrobial resistance is the single greatest threat to humanity – it’s a next pandemic,” said John Wilkinson, at the University of York, in the UK, and who led the study, which involved 127 researchers from 86 institutions. “In 19% of all of the sites we monitored, the concentrations of [antibiotics] exceeded the levels that we’d expect to encourage bacteria to develop resistance.” Research published in January estimated that 5 million people died in 2019 from bacterial infections that were resistant to antibiotics. The regions suffering the highest impact from antibiotic resistance in that study closely align with those in the study with the worst drug pollution, suggesting the contamination of rivers may be playing a part in driving up resistance. One site in Bangladesh had levels of the antibiotic metronidazole more than 300 times higher than the safe target, possibly due to leaks from pharmaceutical manufacturing. Drug pollution was already known to be harming wildlife, from antidepressants causing starlings to feed less and contraceptive drugs reducing fish populations. “If I were a fish living in some of these rivers, I’d be worried right now,” said Wilkinson. However, the levels in most rivers would not deliver high doses to people swimming, he said. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is by far the biggest to date and represents the impact on river pollution of 470 million people. The researchers concluded: “Pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health.” Previously, almost all the measurements had been taken in western Europe and North America but the latest research showed API pollution is often much higher elsewhere. The work included 36 countries in which APIs were measured for the first time, particularly in Africa and South America. Among the drugs detected on all continents except Antarctica were the antidepressants citalopram and venlafaxine, antihistamines cetirizine and fexofenadine, the antibiotic trimethoprim and lidocaine, an anaesthetic. The Kai Tak River in Hong Kong had 34 different APIs at a single site, the highest number recorded. “Ecological risks could well be greater than predicted for the single APIs due to toxicological interactions of these mixtures,” the researchers said. There are more than 2,500 pharmaceuticals in use, but current technology allows the analysis of only 50-100 from a single sample, so researchers focused on the most commonly used. The highest drug concentrations were found in low-to-middle income countries, including India and Nigeria. The researchers think this may be because people in these nations have enough income to buy pharmaceuticals, but live in places without good sewerage systems, which can remove drugs but are expensive. The study did not include measurements of illegal drugs such as cocaine and MDMA, which have been detected in rivers at levels harmful to wildlife, although future analysis of the samples may do this. Drugs flushed into the environment could be cause of wildlife decline Read more The scientists hope the research will help focus clean-up efforts on the pharmaceuticals and regions at greatest risk. “We know good sewage connectivity and wastewater treatment is the key to minimising, though not necessarily eliminating, pharmaceutical concentrations,” said Wilkinson. “However, that is extremely expensive as there’s a lot of infrastructure involved.” Using medicines more carefully is another way to reduce the pollution, he said, particularly antibiotics, which are cheaply available in many countries without prescriptions, and widely taken unnecessarily, for example to treat colds. “Pharmaceuticals are almost omnipresent in rivers across the world,” said Prof Joakim Larsson, of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who was not part of the study team. “The study shows that a fairly large set of pharmaceuticals exceed ‘safe levels’, and often at a very large number of sites. Bacteria do not respect national borders, so if a new resistant bacterium develops on one side of our planet, it soon becomes a risk for everyone.” The researchers are looking to extend the number of countries covered, as the Covid-19 pandemic halted their surveys. They are also increasing the number of drugs measured and hope to assess levels in rivers across the year in order to examine seasonal trends. https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ly-polluted-the-worlds-rivers-scientists-warn
Dennis Meadows on the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Limits to Growth By Richard Heinberg, Dennis Meadows, originally published by Resilience.org February 22, 2022 Only rarely does a book truly change the world. In the nineteenth century, such a book was Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. For the twentieth century, it was The Limits to Growth. Not only did this best-selling 1972 publication help spur the environmental movement, but it showed that the underlying dynamics of the modern industrial world are unsustainable on the timescale of a couple of human lifetimes. This was profoundly important information, and it was delivered credibly and clearly, so that every policy maker could understand it. Sadly, the book was rejected by powerful people with vested interests in the Western growth-based economic model that was overtaking the rest of the world. Today we starting to see the results of that rejection. Of the book’s four authors, only Dennis Meadows and Jørgen Randers are active (Donella Meadows died in 2001). I recently reached out to Dr. Meadows, whom I’ve gotten to know during the past few years, to see if he would be willing to engage in a short discussion, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Limits to Growth. He graciously agreed. Richard Heinberg: Dennis, it is an honor to have this opportunity to interview you. Congratulations on having co-authored the most important book of the past century. I’m delighted that you’re willing to reply to a few questions. First, how is reality tracking with the scenarios you and your colleagues generated 50 years ago? Article continues... Interesting points: "Having said that, I will also say that the efforts which have been undertaken have generally concluded that the world is moving along what we termed in our 1972 report to be the standard scenario. It’s an aggregated image of the global system, showing growth from 1972 up to around 2020, and then, over the next decade or two, the principal trends peaking out and beginning to decline. I still find that model very useful in understanding what I read in the papers and in trying to think about what’s coming next." "As countries like the United States and China become dependent on imports to sustain their living standards, which they are already with respect to oil, they will begin to implement political, military, and economic measures to gain control over those assets abroad. And that’s certainly going to bring us into conflict. Diverting resources off to the mechanisms of control will reduce the kind of growth that’s possible domestically." "It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that the IPCC model starts first with what is politically acceptable, and then tries to trace out its scientific consequences, whereas we looked at what was scientifically known, and then tried to trace out its political consequences." "The concept of energy return on investment (EROI) is extremely important, and probably well known to the people who monitor your website. We know that it’s trending down. Charlie Hall, in his pioneering work, has done the best job I’ve seen to calculate what EROI needs to be in order to sustain an economy as complex as ours. We have a ways to go, but it will be the decline of energy return on investment, which is the biggest problem." "It’s ironic, but with these kinds of problems over time, the concern tends to go up, but the discretionary resources tend to go down. And it’s often the case that, by the time policymakers become sufficiently concerned about something to start wondering what to do, they no longer have sufficient discretionary resources to be very effective."
The age of stability is over "Does the idea that we have entered the ‘Anthropocene’ help us face our reality? While the debate about whether or not we are in the ‘Anthropocene’ exactly is interesting but secondary. What really matters is that we are no longer in the Holocene. Even in the unlikely event that we manage as a global civilisation to get our act together and act with true grit and determination to rein in the cascading damage that has been unleashed, that damage will go on reverberating down the decades and centuries. The age of stability is over. Climate indicators and greenhouse gases are changing at an unprecedented speed. Ice sheets have been irrevocably destabilized, condemning large swathes of the most fertile agricultural lands to inundation by the sea. Vast numbers of species have been lost forever in what is in evolutionary terms the blink of an eye; vast numbers more will follow, many of which we are not even yet aware of. The coziness of the Holocene, its convenience for agriculture and city-building, is a thing of the past." From http://www.whatisemerging.com/opini...an-emergency-it-s-much-more-serious-than-that
"The trends in Alberta are a microcosm of the trends everywhere. For the last century, humanity has thrown a party built on abundant crude oil. It’s now past midnight, and the festivities grow closer to last call. It behooves us to understand what’s ahead." A Case Study of Fossil-Fuel Depletion By Blair Fix, originally published by Economics from the Top Down February 16, 2022 A few months ago I received an intriguing email from researcher and activist Regan Boychuk. For the past 15 years, Boychuk has been studying the oil-and-gas industry in Alberta (Canada) and he wanted to know if I would join his project. I immediately said yes. Some backstory. You can think of Alberta as the Texas of Canada. Alberta is endowed with a vast trove of oil that it has been exploiting for the past 75 years. And like Texas, Alberta’s politics are dominated by the oil industry. Oh, and Alberta is where I grew up. Back to Regan Boychuk’s work. Boychuk has a vision for an Alberta in which the oil industry goes extinct by being forced to clean up its own mess. As it stands, Alberta has about 300,000 oil-and-gas wells waiting to be cleaned up at the oil companies’ expense. The problem is that oil companies are not forced to save for the clean-up expense, and accounting tricks allow them to make the clean-up liability look negligible in their corporate accounts.1 It’s an open secret (implicitly endorsed by the Alberta government) that defunct wells will never be cleaned up. If they were, the oil industry would go bankrupt. And that’s exactly what Boychuk wants. His dream is to kill 3 birds with one stone: Show that the oil-and-gas industry is insolvent; Clean up every well in Alberta; Fund full employment and a transition to a sustainable Alberta economy. To hasten this big-picture goal, Boychuk asked me to help by estimating production curves for every oil-and-gas well in Alberta. After much head scratching and many lines of code, that’s what I’ve done. I’m calling the analysis ‘a case study of oil-and-gas depletion’. In this post, I’ll analyze oil extraction like you’ve never seen it before — resolved down to the individual well. The results give a fascinating window into how humans exploit fossil fuels. Alberta’s oil-and-gas party I was raised in the small prairie town of Stettler, Alberta. As a child, I remember staring out the window during family car trips, counting the oil pumpjacks that dotted the landscape. I thought nothing of it. I had no idea that I was growing up during an ephemeral party. Alberta’s exploitation of oil got started during World War I (when it was a major supplier to Britain), but was sporadic until after World War II. Then in 1947, Imperial Oil struck black gold near the town of Leduc. The ensuing oil boom transformed Alberta into Canada’s fossil-fuel hub. But like all parties, this one didn’t last forever. By 1998, Alberta’s conventional oil-and-gas production had peaked. Figure 1 tells the story. Figure 1: Historical production of conventional oil and gas in Alberta. This is my estimate of Alberta’s conventional oil-and-gas production, derived from well-level estimates. It excludes oil produced from the Athabasca tar sands. [Sources and methods] The caveat to Figure 1 is that it excludes the growing quantity of non-conventional oil extracted from the Athabasca tar sands. (Bitumen from the tar sands now constitutes the majority of Alberta’s oil production.) When the tar-sands party will peak, nobody knows. Something to watch for, though, is how rapidly Alberta’s natural gas production declines. That’s because extracting oil from the tar sand requires profligate amounts of natural gas.2 (The gas is used to heat water, which is then pumped through the sand to extract the oil.) If Alberta’s natural gas production collapses, much of the tar-sands deposit may prove unrecoverable.3 Preying on oil Unless you happen to live in Alberta, you probably don’t care much about the peak and decline of its convention oil-and-gas production. Sure, your lifestyle may depend on oil … but it doesn’t matter to you where that oil comes from. If you feel this way, let me assuage your myopia. The trends in Alberta are a microcosm of the trends everywhere. For the last century, humanity has thrown a party built on abundant crude oil. It’s now past midnight, and the festivities grow closer to last call. It behooves us to understand what’s ahead. More...
The World Oil Supply is Infinite: I Know That Because I Believe It By Roger Blanchard March 12, 2018 Earth scientists have been making the case for years that the present level of human activity is not sustainable. We’re rapidly depleting resources, degrading ecosystems, altering the atmosphere, etc. What earth scientists are saying is generally not covered by the mainstream media, or is sugar coated, because the mainstream media is an outlet for the corporate perspective on the world. As an example, in 2017 global crude oil + condensate production (typically used to define oil-this does not include natural gas liquids, biofuels, or other hydrocarbon liquids) was about 30 billion barrels. Cumulative world oil production at the end of 2017 was approximately 1.36 trillion barrels (1,360 billion barrels). Since WWII, approximately 95% of the cumulative total global oil production has been produced (See Figure 1 by Jean Laherrere-the top brown line represents global oil production). Figure 1 Jean Laherrere, an international petroleum geologist with over 50 years of experience, had estimated ultimate recoverable oil, excluding extra heavy oil, at approximately 2.2 trillion barrels back in 2013. It’s a good bet that the ultimate recovery of economically recoverable oil will be less than 3 trillion barrels. At the clip we’re burning oil, we could go through a significant percentage of the remaining economically recoverable oil in the next 20 years. Ugo Bardi makes the case that the actual oil production curve will look more like Figure 2. Figure 2 Bardi is the author of a Club of Rome produced report titled “Extracted” that reiterated the earlier conclusions of the Club of Rome in their “Limits to Growth” report of 1972. Bardi concludes that the problem of depletion is real and that it is progressively getting worse. In recent years, the rate of global oil discovery has been running less than 1/5th the rate of global oil consumption (Figure 3). It appears that the 2017 discovery rate will end up around 1/10th of the consumption rate. The most favorable geologic areas for oil have now been extensively explored so there isn’t that much oil left to find. Figure 3 More...
Opinion Putin’s energy shock is becoming a world food crisis. Brace for rationing. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard March 4, 2022 — 11.13am The world was facing a grain supply crunch even before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The United Nations food price index was already higher in real terms than at the height of the global hunger crisis a decade ago, when Tunisian bread protests set off the Arab Spring. The tight global market for grains, vegetable oil and fertilisers was probably one of the many reasons that Putin chose this moment to strike, calculating - wrongly it may prove - that the West would not dare to squeeze him too hard. Wheat grain is pumped into a truck during the harvest in Chernihiv, Ukraine. Close to a third of the world’s wheat exports come from Russia and Ukraine.Credit:Bloomberg The world faces what amounts to a commodity “black swan” across the gamut of primary resources. Oil, gas, coal and the “ags” are all spiralling higher together, with metals catching up fast. It is a systemic stagflation shock, an intractable problem for central bankers. It acts like a war reparations tax on the economies of importing nations and is ultimately contractionary. Natasha Kaneva, from JP Morgan, said inventories of tradable commodities are critically low and the world is running out of safety buffers. This is a recipe for “non-linear price increases”, she said. Unlike the West, China is prepared. It has been stocking up for months and holds 84 per cent of the world’s copper, 70 per cent of its corn and 51 per cent of its wheat. “China has bought enormous quantities of US soy in recent weeks,” said Rabobank. One might ask if Xi Jinping knew something in advance. Record food commodity prices are an ordeal by fire for some 45 poorer countries that rely heavily on food imports: the Maghreb, the non-oil Middle East, swathes of Africa, Bangladesh or Afghanistan. The World Food Programme warned of “catastrophic” scarcity for several hundred million people last November. The picture is worse today. ‘I have never seen anything like it in 30 years [...] The situation is just awful and at some point people are going to realise what may be coming. We’re all going to have to tighten our belts, and the mood could get very nasty [...].’ Abdolreza Abbassian, UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation “Everything is going up vertically. The whole production chain for food is under pressure from every side,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, the ex-head of agro-markets at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. “I have never seen anything like it in 30 years and I fear that prices are going to go much higher in the 2022-2023 season. The situation is just awful and at some point people are going to realise what may be coming. We’re all going to have to tighten our belts, and the mood could get very nasty even in OECD countries like Britain,” he said. Energy and farm commodities are interlinked. Natural gas is a feedstock for fertiliser production in Europe, and lest we forget, Russia and Belarus together account for a third of the world’s exports of potash. Rocketing oil prices are driving a switch to biodiesel in south-east Asia, further tightening the global market for vegetable oils. Roughly a third of world exports of barley come from Russia and Ukraine combined, 29 per cent of wheat, 19 per cent of maize, as well as 80 per cent of sunflower oil. Much of this is usually shipped through the Black Sea ports of Odesa, or Kherson - scene of hand-to-hand street battles until it fell on Wednesday - or Mykolaiv, where a Russian missile hit a Bangladeshi-flagged bulk carrier this week and killed one of the crew. “Loading is at a standstill. It is not just the ports: you can’t get a ship in there. Nobody wants to get stranded,” said Mr Abbassian. Lloyd’s List reports that the northern Black Sea and the Azov have been declared “warlike operations areas’, implying double pay for crews, if you can get them. Insurance rates are prohibitive and banks are refusing letters of credit, even though grains, fertilisers and energy products are exempt from sanctions. Shippers are scrambling to find out what it means for a counterparty to be “connected with Russia”. Everybody is wary of the US Treasury’s sanctions police, known as OFAC (US Office of Foreign Assets Control). The US law firm Crowell and Moring said clients fear that they may be caught in the net inadvertently, given that targeted oligarchs control much of Russia’s agro-industrial nexus in one way or another. Every transaction has to be screened to the finest detail. “Russian and Ukrainian wheat are not being offered. Critical corn flows to the world are being stymied. If Ukraine farmers do not plant substantial quantities of corn next month, the supply crunch will be very severe,” said Rabobank. We are now learning [...] what it means to eject the world’s only full-spectrum commodity superpower from the international financial and trading system. Smaller farmers in Russia have been shut out of the domestic credit market just before planting season. Emergency tightening by the central bank has lifted average loan cost to 27 per cent this week. Chicago wheat futures have hit an all-time high of $US1,131. The squeeze is worse for the rest of the world because the broad dollar index is up 30 per cent since the last peak in 2008. For good measure, Rabobank says we must contend with intense La Niña weather patterns and drought in Brazil and Argentina. “Grain shortfalls are likely to be so pronounced as to require demand destruction, or rationing,” it said. The commodity index of the International Monetary Fund - purer than misleading market indexes - shows that primary commodities are today more expensive as a whole in real terms than in 2008 even in US dollars. It is much higher for Europe or Africa. This is fast resembling the raw material shock of the early 1970s. Brent crude hit an all-time high in euros and sterling on Wednesday morning. But unlike the last oil shock, this shock is spread across every sector of energy. European natural gas contracts for April hit a new high of €198 MWh. Thermal coal has risen 75 per cent this month. The roots of this crunch are complex but Putin’s manipulation of pipeline flows explains a big part of the gas crisis since September. We are now learning the second lesson: what it means to eject the world’s only full-spectrum commodity superpower from the international financial and trading system. We have not even begun to feel the blowback for the Western aerospace and semiconductor industry should Russia retaliate by exploiting its lockhold over the global supply chain for titanium, palladium and neon. That is not to say that the West should back away. We are in a war. We must win it. Normally, commodity booms short-circuit by causing recessions, with the help of central banks, apt to overreact and tighten just as the economy is slowing anyway. This episode may be different. I do not see how the West can continue buying any oil, gas, or coal from Russia as the Kremlin unleashes artillery on Ukraine’s civilians, in Mariupol, Kharkiv and Kyiv today, and everywhere soon judging by how Putin swatted away Emmanuel Macron’s plea for restraint. As for the “ags”, all the makings of an enduring food crisis are before our eyes. A billion of the world’s poorest people will go even hungrier thanks to Putin’s deranged misadventure, and some will starve. Our next moral mission is to help them. The Daily Telegraph, London https://www.smh.com.au/business/mar...brace-for-rationing-20220304-p5a1m8.html?btis Silly to think that if Putin hadn't started this resource takeover then no other country would start one. Everyone and everything will (eventually) be blamed, except for the actual predicament: ecological overshoot.
Food crisis grows as spiralling prices spark export bans By Nigel Hunt 4 minute read Ears of wheat are seen in a field near the village of Hrebeni in Kyiv region, Ukraine July 17, 2020. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo Palm oil prices soar as Indonesia curbs exports Ukraine bans wide range of agricultural exports Serbia bans exports of wheat, corn, flour and cooking oil Yara curtails fertiliser output in Italy and France LONDON, March 9 (Reuters) - A global food crisis sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine escalated on Wednesday as Indonesia tightened curbs on palm oil exports, adding to a growing list of key producing countries seeking to keep vital food supplies within their borders. The conflict in Ukraine is threatening global grain production, the supply of edible oils and fertiliser exports, sending basic commodity prices rocketing and mirroring the crisis in energy markets. Palm oil is the world's most widely used vegetable oil and is used in the manufacture of many products including biscuits, margarine, laundry detergents and chocolate. Palm oil prices have risen by more than 50% this year. Indonesia's Trade Minister Muhammad Lufti said the export curbs aimed to ensure that cooking oil prices at home remain affordable to consumers. read more The rise in prices comes at a time when affordability of food is a major challenge as economies seek to recover from the coronavirus crisis and is also helping to fuel a broader surge in inflation across the globe. Russia and Ukraine are also important suppliers of edible oils as well as contributing nearly 30% of global wheat exports. Ukraine announced on Wednesday it had banned a wide range of agricultural exports including barley, sugar and meat until the end of the year. read more The conflict has not only disrupted shipments from the Black Sea region but is also jeopardising prospects for harvests as fertilizer prices soar and supplies shrink in response to a sharp rise in the cost of natural gas - a key component in the manufacturing process for many products. World food prices rose to a record high in February to post a year-on-year increase of 20.7%, according to the United Nations food agency, while many markets have continued to climb this month. read more Malaysian palm oil futures rose to an all-time high following Indonesia's announcement while soybean oil prices jumped to a 14-year peak. Soybean oil prices have climbed by almost 40% this year. SCRAMBLING FOR SUPPLIES Russia and Ukraine are both major producers of sunflower oil and the two countries account for almost 80% of global exports, leaving customers such as India scrambling to secure supplies of alternatives such as palm oil and soyoil. read more Chicago wheat futures have climbed around 60% so far this year, threatening to raise the cost of key food staples such as bread. The loss of two major exporters in Ukraine and Russia has been compounded by news that the condition of the wheat crop in the world's top producer, China, may be the "worst in history" according to the country's agriculture minister. read more Poor growing conditions in drought-affected parts of the U.S. Plains look set to further tighten supplies. Serbia announced on Wednesday it will ban exports of wheat, corn, flour and cooking oil as of Thursday to counter price increases while Hungary banned all grain exports last week. Bulgaria has also announced it will increase its grain reserves and might restrict exports until it has carried out planned purchases. Grain supplies in Romania, a major exporter, have also tightened as international buyers seek alternatives to Russia or Ukrainian supplies although there are currently no plans to restrict shipments. Global grain production could also decline as the production of fertilizers, which help to boost crop yields, is curtailed following a rise in natural gas prices. Yara (YAR.OL), one of the world's largest fertiliser makers, said on Wednesday it was curtailing its ammonia and urea output in Italy and France. The Norwegian company warned last week that the conflict was threatening global food supplies. read more Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" rather than an invasion, had been a major supplier of fertilisers but the country's trade and industry ministry recommended on Friday that producers temporarily halt exports. _________________________________ US, Canada face grain production challenges Photo: Adobe Stock 09.20.2021 By Arvin Donley CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, US — For the first time in nearly a decade, North American farmers are grappling with widespread growing challenges, according to a new report from BMO Economics on the agriculture sector in Canada and the United States. “In both Canada and the United States, exceptionally hot and dry weather across the prairies has curtailed crop yields and is dragging production of major products like wheat and canola to multi-year lows,” said Aaron Goertzen, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets. “But there is a silver lining. After years of excess supply, expectations of a smaller harvest have helped provoke a large increase in crop prices. Strengthening demand has also helped.” The report noted that food demand not only held up well through the COVID-19-related recession, it increased sharply — and grocery volumes have remained high even as the restaurant industry has reopened. “Strong demand, coupled with less abundant supply, has given a major lift to both crop and livestock prices,” Goertzen said. “That, on its own, is great news for the farm sector.” But the report also pointed out that production costs were rising too, with farmers across the continent facing higher prices for many of their most important inputs, including equipment, fertilizer, feed, and energy. “With costs on the upswing, it is as important as ever for farmers to maintain an unrelenting focus on efficiency,” Goertzen said. “Fortunately, both crop and livestock producers have an impressive track record on that front. Overall, North American wheat production has increased by around 40% over the past half century, even as the amount of acreage devoted to the crop declined by more than 20%.” It has been apparent for months that crop yields across the prairies would be subpar this year, but the latest estimates are eye-opening. “In the United States, total wheat yields are likely to be around 12% below trend this year — and that estimate incorporates a decent winter wheat harvest earlier this year,” Goertzen said. “In Canada, which produces predominantly spring wheat, yields are projected to be roughly 33% below trend this year. The drought on the prairies has also devastated yields for Canadian canola — typically the country's largest revenue-generating crop — which are likely to be 37% below trend this year. “US canola yields are also extremely weak, though the crop is not grown intensively south of the border.” Although North American corn and soybean yields have held up relatively well this year, reflecting generally accommodative conditions in the US Midwest, continental stockpiles of all major crops are getting extremely low. “Across North America as a whole, inventories of wheat, canola, corn, and soybeans are all projected to fall near decade-lows relative to consumption by the end of the current marketing year,” Goertzen said. Click here to view the full report.